Harrison Bergeron | Traditional Criticism

Kurt Vonnegut

       HARRISON   BERGERON

      by Kurt Vonnegut

Hello everybody! Here you have a traditional criticism for “Harrison Bergeron”.

Kurt Vonnegut was born on November 11^th, 1922 in Indianapolis. He was an American writer, best known for his satirical literary style, as well as the science-fiction elements in much of his works. He belonged to a wealthy family in Indianapolis. He died on April 11^th, 2007 in New York City, at the age of 84.

    In “Harrison Bergeron”, there is a way to reflect the future coming. In this story, we have two different ways of seeing “life” in this world. First of all, we have our reality. There are many differences between people: beauty, weight, height, personality, and occupations. We live all together, with no divisions or categories, no matter the physical appearance. Besides that, we face a lot of differences between countries. There are wars, poverty, unhappiness, insecurity and we are exposed to any dangerous circumstances. On the other hand, in “Harrison Bergeron” there is a crucial situation that reflects “technology” as the future controller of our lives. Making divisions, changing people’s thoughts, personalities, and perspectives. Technology through a kind of government (or a group of special people) is taking the control of everything. They want to treat us like “puppets”. That’s why is a connection between the reading and the image that Vonnegut used to represent his story.

    The story shows a different “life”, and it points out for the future that comes. He opens the story with this descriptive narration about social equality in the future.

“The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the Law. They were equal in every which way. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th… Amendents to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General”.

    In the story, the case of “Harrison Bergeron” is special. He is a different young boy, that wants to have the control of his own life. He is different in all ways. He is an intelligent handsome boy that fights for his freedom and acceptance by the society. The world showed in the story is of “equality”, privated of liberty and personal decisions. There’s a change of the reality we live now. Our society enjoys freedom of thought, intellectual ability, physical beauty and strength, but is being manipulated through the use of technology and by government decree. That’s a nice story that presents the “real life” for the futures years. Sadly, we are becoming puppets of technology. Development and advanced technology have been taking the control of our life. A world of equality controlled by a “government” with lack of freedom and personal thoughts. The story presents a change in everything. From my personal point of view, life is perfect, but it’s true that hard times are coming and nobody can change that. Vonnegut published this story in 1961, but he was sure that this destructive phenomenon called technology would take the control of our lives and make us “equal”.

Now, I have a question for you to know what you think about this story:
Is there any "reality" in the story related to the control of technology in our future lives?

Here I attach a link to a web site with information and a short video of "Harrison Bergeron"

See you soon! 💁
-Bell Solís